How to get published

Once again, here’s some November catch up displaced by other priorities.

On November 6th and 7th, I travelled down to Humber College in Etobicoke (Toronto) to attend the How to get published workshop Hosted by Cythia Good and Jennifer Murray.

About the presenters: Cynthia Good is the former president and publisher of Penguin Canada and current director of Humber’s Creative Book Publishing program. Jennifer Murray is the former director of marketing at Penguin and vice-president, marketing at Kids Can Press.

As with any of my transcribed sessions, discretion is advised. I fully acknowledge my humanity and there may be errors. If you see any, please be kind enough to let me know so I can make corrections, post-hasty.

You can’t make a living creative writing alone. (Mel’s note: It is possible to make a living writing, even in Canada. I know several people who do it, but it usually involves a fair amount of risk that most of us are not prepared to take. Do not lose heart if it is your goal to quit your day job. You just have to plan carefully and understand what level of risk you are comfortable with. As ever, do your research. /end rant)

It’s a brave new publishing world since the advent of digital publishing.

Publishing used to be a paternal system. Now it’s more like a partnership. Much more business and marketing knowledge is required of the average writer.

There have been a few big sea changes in the publishing world.

Two years ago Random House and Penguin merged (Mel’s note: officially, it’s Penguin Random House, or P/RH, but I still like Random Penguin). It’s a 51% to 49% balance of the controlling interest in the company and a shift from primarily German to primarily English oversight.

More recently, HarperCollins (HC) announced that it would be shutting down its Canadian distribution centre. This will mean the layoff of 120 people including the former president of sales, distribution, and administrative finance.

What does this mean for HC? They bought Harlequin last year. Another merger of sorts.

Another recent bit of news is that the government has disallowed new foreign publishers to set up operations in Canada. This is affecting Simon & Schuster (S&S) and their imprints, resulting in the departure of several key employees.

A Canadian publishing company that started up eight months ago may not be able to make it in this increasingly hostile publishing environment.

Will we see a HC and S&S merger?

The thing about mergers is that in order to support their infrastructure, publishers depend on authors whose sales will finance that support. Midlist authors are being dropped. Fewer chances are being taken on new authors.

These authors are going to small and boutique Canadian publishing houses.

In Canada, a bestseller is about 5,000 copies. Really, if you take into consideration returns, the print run should be anywhere from 7,500 to 10,000 copies and at least 5,000 of those must sell. 5,000 is the break-even point.

Why go for a traditional deal?

If you write non-fiction, there’s still money for public speaking. Though marketing and promotional budgets are disappearing, there is still some money to be had.

Traditional publishers are also branching out into digital. Hazlitt is an online magazine put out by RH.

They’re also getting into providing author services. Author Portal, through RH again, is much like Kobo Writing Life and offers similar metrics. Penguin bought Author Solutions (Mel’s note: BOO!) because selling author services ala carte is more lucrative.

Marketshare by format (Canada)

18% ebook (24% in the US)

58% paperback

24% hardcover

Booknet keeps the statistics and only publishers and booksellers have access to that.

Ebooks have hit a plateau and are expected to hold. Pricing is not expected to hold, however.

Scribd, through HC, is billed as the Netflix for books. Amazon also offers a subscription-based service (Kindle Unlimited) whereby you can loan unlimited material.

In general, Amazon sells ebooks at a low price. Print prices are also falling.

Publishers in Canada can’t compete and can’t survive without government grants.

Three years back, in the battle between what was then the Big 6 and Amazon resulted in an Amazon win.

In part, it comes down to discoverability. How do readers find their books?

There are also book apps. Apps based on popular books. No one is making money on boo apps yet.

E.L. James’s success led to trends in erotica. Young adult and new adult are still strong categories.

Wattpad is a Canadian company and you can post your novels on there, chapter by chapter, for free. You can get great reader feedback that way. There are no stats currently on how releasing material on Wattpad may affect sales of ebooks or print books later on.

Of the Big 5 publishers, Canadian authors have access to three:

P/RH – both still take submissions seperately for the main publisher and all imprints. RH has Vintage, DoubleDay, Knopf, McClelland and Stewart, Tundra, etc. Penguin’s imprints include Viking, Allan Lane, Hamish-Hamilton. Collectively, they publish 100-150 books annually.

HarperCollins, which has recently acquired Harlequin.

Simon & Schuster, though they are, as mentioned, in the midst of transition.

There’s also Scholastic. They’re US-based, but Canadian authors can access them.

Small or independent publishers

Dundurn in Hamilton. Their focus in on history. They are in growth mode.

ECW publishes everything.

ChiZine is a niche publisher of horror.

Bundoran and Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Micropublishers, or boutique publishers

Biblioasis

Gaspereau

Freehand

Goose Lane

Pedlar Press

Bookthing

Tightrope

Insomniac

Mansfield

Groundwood

Pyjama Press

Second Story

How do you choose?

If you aim for a big publisher, you will usually get a better deal.

With smaller houses, you get more attention and they will take more risks on new authors. Smaller presses are more agile and have specialties.

Editors

It’s a matter of match-making. The editor needs to make money for their publisher. They have a lot to read and a lot of work to do for their current clients.

Make sure your first page is memorable.

A well-written book with excellent sales can make an editor’s career. They receive bonuses based on sales, awards, and word-of-mouth (reviews). They usually have “stables” of writers.

They curate their authors’ best work.

Agents

Do you need one? For the big publishers, yes. The best way to get an agent is to get a publisher (ironic, isn’t it?).

You can approach editors directly. They’re always looking for new authors.

As I said at the outset, my notes are not complete. I can’t write down everything said in the course of a day and a half. We also wrote query letters and critiqued them in class, as well as learning how an agent sells your book to a publisher. We also went over non-fiction book proposals, which I chose not to share with you here. There was a lot I couldn’t include.

That was the first day and a half. The last half of the second day was given over to Jennifer Murray to discuss marketing and promotion.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t take notes for the marketing piece.

You’ll have to register for the next session if you want to find out about that 😉 I’d recommend it if you’re in the Toronto area.

And that’s it for Writerly Goodness tonight. Toddling off to Bedfordshire.